10 Wrestlers Who Never Lived Up To Their Early Promise
9. Dolph Ziggler
When Dolph Ziggler was installed as number one contender to Dean Ambrose's WWE title at this year's SummerSlam, few clamoured to see him dethrone the Lunatic Fringe.
The pairing had a midcard flavour; there were at least three matches fated to feature at its expense, and the result was never in doubt. Most predicted that Ziggler, as he had done so often, would fall at the last hurdle in a good-not-great fifteen minute bout, the likes of which even his most ardent supporters had grown weary of.
Predictably, their tussle, positioned sixth on a ten match main card, lasted 15:21 and was ably won by Ambrose.
It all went wrong for Ziggler following his 2013 face turn, engineered as a result of a groundswell of hardcore fan support and a paradoxically fortuitous concussion.
The booking which followed it was counterproductive at best, but Ziggler subsequently made a tiresome habit of saying how good he was without actually demonstrating it - wrestling the same back and forth, near fall-crammed matches while all around him, NXT upstarts were expanding the WWE in-ring style at a canter.
We implore Ziggler, following his umpteenth career loss to The Miz at Backlash, to prove us wrong and his own proclamations true by departing the WWE bosom and stretching his legs elsewhere...